Children with food allergies

At Wellingborough Day Nursery, we ensure that we do our very best to protect children who suffer allergic reactions when they eat a certain type of food.

We have a very strong procedure for making certain that we don’t feed the wrong food to the wrong child – and that also goes for children who are unable to eat certain foods for other reasons eg vegetarians or on religious grounds. When you register with us, you will be asked if we need to consider any particular needs around food and once you’ve made us aware of any such issues, these are the steps that we take:

Children’s allergic reactions are detailed by the parents in a special form at the point of registration (or as soon as the nursery is informed). Any changes to allergy information MUST be put in writing by the parent, signed and handed directly to the manager.

Children with allergies are identified at the start of the day during opening checks and the daily risk assessment.

As part of the opening checks, the Allergy board on the kitchen door is completed, identifying how many children with allergies are in nursery today.

Identify the child with an allergy by using pink plates, bowls and cups (other children use any other coloured plates). Individual plates are identified by the children’s names written in non-permanent marker pen, along with whether the meal is ‘standard’ or ‘alternative.’

If the meal is ‘alternative,’ the serving bowl will be identified with the child’s name.

A named member of staff (identified by a senior member of staff on a daily basis) is responsible for monitoring allergies alongside any person preparing food (cook, nursery nurse etc). The named member of staff wears a red wristband to identify them.

The named member of staff has ultimate responsibility for ensuring the children receive the correct food. If the staff are absent (eg on their lunch break), they pass the red wristband to another member of staff, who then assumes the responsibilities.

Children with allergies are monitored by the staff to ensure there is no exchange of food between the children.

The nursery cook is responsible for identifying a suitable food written on the menu for the children with allergies.

Food is plated up in the kitchen for the children with allergies. Food for second servings is labelled with the child’s name and kept at a separate table.

Children with allergies are served before all other children.

As a general rule, the nursery does not offer unsupervised play with food eg messy play, cutting bread, homemade playdough. If unsupervised play is planned, it MUST be first risk assessed and then approved by the nursery manager before it goes ahead.

Ingredients in all purchased food stuffs have to be checked for allergens by the chef and/or manager.

Ingredients for all food served in the nursery are available upon request.